


"It's actually pretty easy loving you".

by amelia_mont



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anxiety, Bad Decisions, Bad Flirting, Gay, Guilt, Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstandings, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Sweet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-05 16:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15867096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amelia_mont/pseuds/amelia_mont
Summary: Jared hates himself, he hates the choices he had made.He hates how selfish he is.And still, a boy loves him. But of course, he doesn't know that yet.





	1. "A Sad Introduction"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mis.march](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mis.march).
  * Inspired by [Bandage Comic](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/413367) by mis.march. 



—Jared was unhappy. He had lied to be popular, to feel validated. And now, he had lost the only real friend -and unrequited crush- he had ever had. Even worst, his popular peers treated him like garbage, and the little voice in his head was getting louder every day.  
But he still went on.  
He managed every day to get up, to have a shower, to go to school and to pass his tests with average marks. He was proud of doing so, and ashamed of being proud of something that “normal” people did easily. But what else could he do?  
“Jared! Get up, we are going to lose the bus!” Jared blinked at the voice of Nolan. He had woken up at five o’clock in the morning and stared at the ceiling without being able to rift into sleep since then. He growled and finally got up, he had a shower and left without having breakfast. There wasn’t enough time and he wasn’t going to let Nolan be late at class because of him.  
They took the bus and went on separated ways as soon as they arrived. He walked into the hall with a lost stare and tired steps. He was just so tired…  
“Hey, Kleinman” He heard the vague greeting and realized he was already on his locker.  
“Hey, Arthur!” He faked a smile and told some stupid non-amusing joke which was received by a roll of eyes from the blond. Jared stared at his locker for a little longer than he intended.  
“Is something wrong, Kleinman?” Arthur said it like he didn’t care, but a spark of… curiosity? Was in his voice.  
“Uh? Why?” He laughed it off and the bell rang. Everyone left towards their classrooms and Jared hurried to open his locker to take his books. But he couldn’t do it though, Arthur slammed the locker’s door.  
Jared stared scared at Arthur’s glare. They stood there in a thin and awkward silence. It broke when Jared gulped worried.  
“What’s wrong Arty?” Jared stammered and at this Arthur’s gestures softened. He shook his head.  
“Never mind, see you later loser” The blond waved and walked away.  
“Huh?” Jared was confused. He just yawned and pick up his books to head to class.  
The class went a little better than expected. He didn’t pay attention to it, but the teacher congratulated him in an English paper he had written. He was able to smile a little without faking it. It was really nice.  
Lately, he had been enjoying writing. Not that he would ever admit it though. He wished Evan was there, he would have congratulated him. They could have gone for a nice ice-cream to celebrate. He sighed.  
When the bell rang, he went to the cafeteria for lunch. He looked for his usual table with Arthur and Natalie, when he found it he saw another kid sitting there with them. Which was his name again? Ethan? There was also Natalie’s friend who always sat with them, but Jared had never taken the trouble to remember her name.  
There wasn’t any left sits.  
He sighed and sat down in an empty table alone, at least that meant he wasn’t going to have to pretend to laugh at their jokes. He took some fries and vegetables his mother had prepared the previous night and stared blankly at them. Lately he had been zoning out a lot. He had to fix that. People were going to think he was a freak.  
“They already do, moron”  
No. Not again.  
“Why do you think Arty acted like that today? It’s because he hates you”  
That’s not true.  
“It isn’t? Then why is he hanging out with Ethan instead of you?”  
Shut up.  
“It’s because he is better than you in every way.”  
SHUT UP.  
“They are ashamed of you Jared, you embarrass them every day and they are going to replace you and you’ll be alone, AGAIN”  
PLEASE, FUCKING SHUT UP!  
“Hey”  
A chill ran down in his back as he felt a hand in his tensed shoulders. He realized he had been clenching his fork hard enough to let his knuckles turn white. Tears were about to fall from his eyes. He looked afraid and saw Arthur at his side.  
Jared gulped. Arthur stayed silent.  
After a few minutes, Jared responded in a small voice.  
“Hey”  
Jared was glad that Arthur had shut up the little voice, though now he was embarrassed in front of him.  
“What happened to you?”  
“Huh?”  
“Don’t play dumb on me, Kleinman. Since you started using that bandage you haven’t been the same. Is someone threatening you? Are they hitting you?”  
Jared shook his head.  
“N-no, it’s nothing” He laughed, but it felt extremely shallowed.  
Arthur sighed and glared at him.  
“Not that I care, Kleinman. But you have to tell me why you’re acting like this. Nat is slowly realizing.”  
“Nat?” He had been really careful and smiled in front of her, how did she know? Was she going to take him out of the group?  
“Yeah, I know you like her or whatever. If you want to impress her, you can’t act like that in front of her.”  
“But I don’t…”  
“I can help you though. For a price of course.”  
“What?”  
“I’ll go to you house tomorrow, have prepared 10 dollars”  
“But…”  
“See you tomorrow, Kleinman”  
And like that, he left. Leaving a confused and anxious Jared wondering if he should tell Arthur that he was gay.


	2. "A friendship developing"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time since last chapter. As always, I have no excuses. Just, procrastination (?

Jared doodled a small stick man in his arm saying ‘Hello’. He liked to leave things like that so maybe his soulmate would one day answer him. But they never did. Maybe it was because he didn’t have one. The news was saying that every day the rate of soulmates decreased at a high speed. It was possible that he could be one of the unfortunate ones. Maybe that’s why he never got an answer.  

He sighed and laid on his bed. He was emotionally exhausted, he wasn’t ready for a visit of Arthur. Still, he took a shower and changed clothes. When he heard a knock in the door he was ready, though he had his hair still wet. Jared sighed before putting a big smile like always.

“Hi, Arty!”

Arthur entered the house with two coffees and left them on the table.

“We are going to get you better at drinking and eating in front of other people. You really suck at that.”

Jared felt a bit of pain in the chest at the harsh words.

“Sure!!!” He exclaimed a bit more loudly than he expected. He whispered an apology and sat down next to the blond.

“First of all, you have to make sure you’re drinking it slowly. You can’t choke on it, it’s gross.” Arthur said and took a sip of his own as an example.

“Oh, uhm, I don’t like coffee… I prefer hot chocolate but- “Arthur glared at him. “But coffee is great! Yeah, amazing!”

Jared drank a bit of his coffee and Arthur nodded in approval.

“Yeah, loser, you’re getting it” The blond one smiled at him kindly for a second before putting his snarky expression once again. “Now, eating. Do you have something in here?”

“Uhm, I think so.” Jared stood up and went to the kitchen. He looked for some muffins he had seen the previous day. When he found them, he brought them to the living-room and offered Arthur one of them.

“You have to eat slowly too, and chew many times. Never laugh if you are eating, and of course, no talking at all.”

“But, what if someone says something really funny and I can’t contain the laugh?”

Arthur sighed and shrugged, “I guess in the worst case you just have to cover your mouth with your hand. But don’t over use that, it’s not cool at all.”

Jared nodded and took a bite out of the muffin. He did as instructed and ate slowly, careful not to chew loudly. He swallowed and received a smile and a look of approval.

“Good. Now, we’ll work in your talking.”

“My talking?”

“Yup, you stutter a lot. And you talk too fast. You have to make sure people understand you. You should talk clear and try not to scream please. Talking too low is a problem too. You have to come off as confident, then, they’ll respect you.”

“Mhm, okay.” Jared stared at his hands nervously. “But… why are you helping me?”

Arthur seemed confused at the question and looked at him puzzled. “Why wouldn’t I?”

There was an awkward silence, in which Jared have him a glance that said ‘Why would you?’. Arthur nodded in understanding and stood up.

“I think it’s enough for today. You are actually not that bad at this. I’ll see you tomorrow at school.” And without another word, he left Jared’s house.

 

The following weeks, Jared started to improve his social skills. He followed Arthur’s advice and received constant nods of approval from him. It started to feel nice. At first, he didn’t really like the idea of completely changing the way he acted -he thought he already pretended to be confident good enough- but it actually helped a lot. Natalie didn’t mock him as much as before and it gave the little voice a small break from time to time.

Him and Arthur started to see each other more, when he wasn’t at school he showed another himself. Yeah, he still had that rude way of talking to him, but he was much friendlier. They only talked about advice at first, but when they run out of things to improve, they started talking about much more trivial stuff. The weather, their classes, their friends, and then much more personal stuff, like their family. It was really nice to have someone to talk to.

Jared wanted to meet Arthur every day, so he began to make up excuses to see him. “Arthur! I think I need to walk better.” “Arty, Natalie thinks that I don’t have style” “Hey! Could you teach me some topics to talk about?”. As strange as it might sound, Arthur never refused to see him. He actually seemed eager to it.

“Hey Arhur!” The blond teen gave him a glance from where he was sitting under a tree and a small smile.

“Hey.”

Jared sat down next to him and chuckled. Arthur raised an eyebrow. “You seem happy today.”

“Yeah? Well, I think I am.”

Arthur smirked and gave him a cup of hot chocolate. Then took a sip from his coffee. When he felt that it had been a weird couple of minutes without Jared talking, he gave him a glance. Jared was staring at the chocolate in gape.

“What’s wrong?” Frowned Arthur.

“It’s not coffee…”

“Oh, sorry, I thought you had said you preferred hot chocolate.” He bit his lip. “You can have mine if you want, I’m not really in the mood for it anyway.”

“No, it’s not, I… I do like this more. I mean…  Thank you.” It had been a few weeks since Jared had mentioned that he didn’t like coffee, and still, somehow, Arthur had managed to remember and make one of the sweetest gestures he had imagined. It might not be something big or important, but it really meant the world to Jared.

They spent half an hour or so talking about trivial things, when suddenly the subject of soulmates came up.

“And… Do you have a soulmate Arty?” Arthur almost choked on his coffee at the question.

“Y-yeah. I guess I do.”

“You guess?”

“I mean, they have been writing me things on the body. But I don’t really answer them.”

“Why not? You could meet the love of your life! Isn’t that important?”

“It is. But… What if that someone isn’t what I imagined? What if they don´t like me? Besides, I kind of like someone, and if they weren’t my soulmate… I would be really disappointed.”

“Oh.” Arthur liked someone. Arthur had a crush. Arthur, who glared and treated everybody in a cold way. It was cute to think that a boy like him was in love.

“How about you? Do you have your eye on someone? A soulmate maybe?” Jared laughed bitterly.

“That’s a stupid question. I don’t think I have a soulmate, they never answer me and I do not receive anything written so… And even if I did, I wouldn’t be… you know… the ideal partner?”

“Of course you’d be, idiot.” Muttered Arthur.

“But let’s talk about you! Your crush! It’s Ethan, right? I mean, it’s pretty obvious because I always see you two together in the hallways and he is not ugly. I think that I’m trying to say that it wouldn´t be weird for you to like him because well, he is handsome and you are handsome and you would be a great couple. You have all my support, not like it’s important you know, but I would help you if I could and…”

“It’s not Ethan, Jared.”

“Oh… Okay.” Jared blushed embarrassed. He had gotten nervous and rambled. Stupid Jared.

“Look, it doesn’t matter who he is, okay?”

Jared smirked at him “He? So he is a he.”

“Jared, I’m gay. You know it, EVERYONE KNOWS IT.”

The brown hair boy started laughing at this he couldn’t stop. He laughed and laughed until they were tears in his eyes. Arthur joined him a moment later. And they laughed together for several minutes. When they stopped, they took a deep breath to calm down and smiled at each other.

Arthur looked a way shyly and put his hand over Jared’s. At first, Jared thought it was a mistake, but Arthur didn’t take it away, so he decided the best was to go with it. Jared intertwined their fingers together and a fluttering feeling spread through his body. His face turned red and he had to look away. It was a really nice feeling. They stayed like that for a few minutes in silence, until Arthur started talking as if nothing happened.

Their hand didn´t separate until it was getting dark and Arthur announced he had to leave. He stood up and waved him with a small smile.

Jared sat there for half an hour staring at his hand. It was a shame he had the bandage, he would have enjoyed it even more if it was just skin. Skin against skin. ARTHUR’s skin against his own.

Why did he enjoy it so much? They just held hands. They were just friends.

Right?


End file.
